Grateful Dead Music Forum

Don't know if you guys have seen this elsewhere on the net, but the Fed's raided Gibson's Memphis factory yesterday and confiscated wood,guitars, computers and some paper records. Sounds like they've been importing Madagascar Rosewood in violation of a protected species law. This'll be interesting to follow.

http://www.wsmv.com/news/21641962/detail.html

Here’s the statement from Gibson

Nashville, TN…November 17, 2009 — Today Gibson Guitar is fully cooperating with agents of the United States Fish & Wildlife Service as it pertains to an issue with harvested wood. Gibson is a chain of custody certified buyer who purchases wood from legal suppliers who are to follow all standards. Gibson Guitar Chairman and CEO sits on the board of the Rainforest Alliance and takes the issue of certification very seriously. The company will continue to cooperate fully and assist our federal government with all inquiries and information.

Jackr - thanks for the update. Apparently, the wood went from Madagascar to a middleman in Germany and then to Gibson, if not though other hands in between. I'm sure that it's hard to certify things coming from an improvised area, so Gibson may not have even known the wood was 'hot'. We'll see how it goes...not someone who swears 100% by the big name brands - lesser companies make good stuff too, but Gibson is still here is the US, and there has to be something to say about spending your dollars at home in this economy. Hopefully they won't be implicated in this, obviously the green crowd and musician crowd overlap, and a lot of people on the HC boards were getting heated that this might have been done intentionally.

Good Shout out Manticore.(I love ELP too.) The Buy US shoutout I mean. My Fender is American Made, My SG is too. I bought the economy Martin, when I may have gotten a better guitar for the same price from some Korean, or Asian or Mexican Factory. So basically I pay a little more, but I get American made Products. And my Martin is a great guitar anyways-it just doesn't have all the embellishments.
Sorry if this is off-topic. Peace Out Ya'll !!

Hard to believe a company as large as Gibson would put themselves at risk by purposely buying illegal wood. I doubt they'd sell that many extra guitars by buying one special rosewood over another anyway.

Seems like a distributor issue that will likely just fizzle away from Gibson.

Gibson buys wood from a distributor and if they say it was legit and filled out the paperwork I'm guessing Gibson thought it was legit. I'm guessing the case is really against the distributor and they needed the wood from the Gibson plant to make the case.

Gibson Guitar CEO Henry Juszkiewicz has taken a leave of absence from the Rainforest Alliance in the aftermath of a federal raid on Tuesday. He won’t return until after a federal investigation has concluded, the alliance said in a statement.

Feds stormed Gibson’s Nashville plant, and seized documents and instruments in an effort to find out if the company was importing an endangered species of wood from Madagascar, which violates a law known as the Lacey Act.
Feds did not make any arrests on Tuesday. However, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has sought an affidavit to unseal court documents on the matter.

Juszkiewicz served on the Rainforest Alliance for more than 15 years and urged the industry to use more sustainable woods.
“It's very difficult to know what’s happening at this point,” Tensie Whelan, president of the Rainforest Alliance told The Tennessean newspaper. “Our hope indeed is there will be no violations of the Lacey Act.”